Kingmaker, if not king

By Amita Verma

Lucknow

The Bahujan Samaj Party may well emerge as the dark horse in the Lok Sabha elections, playing the kingmaker, if not the king (rather, queen), in the post-poll scenario.

UP chief minister and BSP president Mayawati — being the shrewd politician that she is — has been bringing on new votebanks in addition to her dalit votebank and has been expanding her support base.

It was the dalit-brahmin combination that catapulted the BSP to a full majority in the 2007 UP Assembly elections and the newly-added vaishya and thakur votebanks could easily help the BSP emerge as a key player in the Lok Sabha elections.

Ms Mayawati, who aspires to be the next Prime Minister, has been working overtime to go beyond her dalit vote base. She has been consciously trying to appease the upper castes, particularly Vaishyas and Thakurs, to complete the upper caste triangle of brahmin-thakur-vaishya.

Ms Mayawati believes that with the support of upper castes and, of course, dalits, she can win more than 50-55 Lok Sabha seats in UP. With this support, her party managers are confident of even defusing the anti-incumbency mood that has now started building up against her one-year-old government.

When it comes to poll preparedness, Ms Mayawati is way ahead of her political rivals. She has already finalised more than 80 per cent of the candidates for the Lok Sabha seats and is passionately wooing "winnable" candidates from other parties.

In the past one year, Ms Mayawati has been repeatedly attacking the Congress-led UPA government even though the Congress remains a peripheral player in UP. By doing so, Ms Mayawati has sent a clear message to her voters that her main rival in the Lok Sabha elections is the Congress, and not the Samajwadi Party. In short, she has already positioned herself as a national leader who is making a serious bid for power in the coming elections.

Interestingly, Ms Mayawati has kept her options open and has not shown preference for either the UPA or the NDA until now. It is amply clear that she will drive a hard bargain and throw her lot with the formation that offers her the best and biggest political bouquet.